Virgin Hotel to open in San Francisco in fall

1of2A rendering of the new Virgin Hotel San Francisco, which will open in this fall and includes two penthouse suites, a rooftop bar, meeting rooms, a coffee shop and a restaurant & lounge.Photo: Virgin Hotels

2of2Virgin Hotel San Francisco is next to a future Central Subway stop and the expanding Moscone Center.Photo: Roland Li / The Chronicle

Virgin Hotel San Francisco will open in the fall and is accepting reservations starting Nov. 15, the company said.

Nightly rates start at $271 on Nov. 15 and drop to about $200 later, according to the hotel website.

Part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, the hotel brand started in 2010 in Chicago and is expanding around the U.S. This is the company’s first hotel in San Francisco. Another Bay Area location in Milpitas is planning to open in 2020.

More New Hotels in San Francisco

After a nine-year development drought, a number of new hotels have recently opened in San Francisco, which is seeing booming tourism despite challenges related to homelessness. A record 25.5 million tourists in the city spent $91 billion last year, both up 1.4 percent from the previous year, according to the San Francisco Travel Association, the city's tourism board.

“The Moscone Center reopening has really laid the foundation for considerable market growth,” said Mark Fraioli, a hotel broker with JLL. “The city from a visitation point of view continues to fire on all cylinders.”

Other new San Francisco hotels include the 159-room Hotel Via at 138 King St. and 131-room Proper Hotel at 45 McAllister St., which both opened last year. The 203-room Yotel San Francisco at 1095 Market St. is taking reservations starting Oct. 15, according to its website.

Roland Li covers commercial real estate for the business desk, focusing on the Bay Area office and retail sectors.

He was previously a reporter at San Francisco Business Times, where he won one award from the California News Publishers Association and three from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

He is the author of “Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports," a 2016 book on the history of the competitive video game industry. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2015, he studied and worked in New York. He freelanced for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other local publications. His hobbies include swimming and urban photography.